Legends of Creation

Gryphon

Gryphons are aerial predators of the southern savanna’s. They have the hind quarters of a lion and the head, forelimbs and wings of a huge eagle.
Gryphons nest atop cliffs and rocky outcroppings, a pride will fight to the death to protect its eggs and young. Which, despite the difficulty in training a gryphon, are popular targets for very brave or foolhardy hunters.

Gryphons hunt in prides of between 3 and 12 members, sometimes they are led by a Flame Gryphon, which treats them as something between cousins and pets.

Special AttacksDeath Dive:
The gryphon can dive down onto a target from long range with incredible force. The first time it moves down into close range with an enemy while airborne and makes a decisive attack, it may add four dice to the attack roll and apply the double 10s rule on the damage roll.
Once it has used this special attack, it must regain altitude, returning back to vertical long range before it can do so again.

Swooping Descent:
An gryphon that flies downward to make a decisive surprise attack or ambush against an enemy adds two automatic successes to the attack roll.
Note that an gryphon soaring high in the sky is generally beyond the range of sensory detection for characters who lack superhuman sight, ensuring an ambush on first strike and providing the possibility of reestablishing stealth in combat by simply flying higher than enemies can see.

Powerful Pounce:
If a gryphon moves into close range with an enemy of the same size or smaller and deals 5+ damage to it with a withering attack on the same turn, it may pay a point of Willpower to reflexively make a grapple gambit against its prey.

Mauling Bite:
When the gryphon makes a savaging decisive attack against a clinched enemy, it adds +4 to the raw damage of this attack. It can receive this bonus only once per clinch, unless reset by crashing the clinched enemy.

MeritsEagle Eye:
While soaring high in the air, the gryphon receives five bonus dice on any visual Perception-based rolls made to notice things, and can make out the fine details of far-off objects even when it is flying potentially miles above them.
It also automatically succeeds on any roll to track a character while airborne, unless that character is employing perfect track-covering magic.

Eagle Wing Rush:
A gryphon may rush enemies from long range above them, as long as the horizontal distance between them is still at short range.